


Leaving Home Ain't Easy

by SennyriNamis23



Series: Play The Game (of Love) [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Hell yeah!!!!, M/M, Pre-Relationship, backstories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:09:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27994302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SennyriNamis23/pseuds/SennyriNamis23
Summary: Dorian Pavus and Ellior Lavellan would appear to have nothing in common. One grew up in Tevinter, a pampered mage, the world handed to him on a silver platter (if he would take it). The other grew up in the slums of Denerim, the only constant in his life being his twin sister as he shuffled from alienage to Circle to Dalish Clan.But they both long for the same thing: home.
Relationships: Male Inquisitor/Dorian Pavus, Male Lavellan/Dorian Pavus
Series: Play The Game (of Love) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2044882
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Leaving Home Ain't Easy

Dorian was five years old the first time he left home. For the Circle of Carastes. His first of many disastrous Circle enrollments.

He didn’t cry in front of his mother when she dropped him off with the Headmaster. He didn’t tremble. He didn’t falter.

He stood upright, proud, as tall as a five year old can be.

Aquinea didn’t touch him as she left. He didn’t expect her to.

\---

Ellior wasn’t sure he had a home, to be honest. The Tabrises had taken him and Yveriel in the year before, but they were still outsiders. They were still orphans, kids with no one but each other in Denerim’s alienage.

Maybe Yveriel _was_ home.

Maybe that was enough.

\---

At fourteen, Dorian was sent home from yet another tutor.

_Brash, impulsive, irresponsible, unteachable. No amount of talent or money can make tutoring him worth the cost._

Those were the words of the mage who pushed him out the door.

He didn’t even look at his father when he arrived back in Qarinus, books in his hands. A servant came to take his trunk, but he waved them off and hauled his belongings up to his room himself, locking the door behind him.

\---

At fourteen, the Templars finally found the magic in Ellior.

They’d been patrolling Denerim more than usual lately, since the murders around the Tabris wedding. Human nobles had been killed, after all, and they needed to be protected from the elven rabble in the alienage.

Ellior had made a fire with his hands. It was hardly a flame, truthfully, but it was enough to warm him on a cold afternoon.

He caught the attention of a grey-bearded soldier, who swiftly picked his scrawny body off the ground. Before he knew it, Ellior was enrolled at the Fereldan Circle, Kinloch Hold.

\---

At nineteen, Dorian had finally escaped his father’s unbearable weight. He had grown into his own magic, under the tutelage of Gereon Alexius. He’d befriended Alexius’ son, Felix. He’d risen through the ranks at the Minrathous Circle, and was slated to take his comprehensive exams within the next year.

Something finally seemed to go right.

Alexius never commented when he took an extra day or two in his travels to and from Minrathous. Nor did he comment on the teeth and lip marks that littered his skin upon his return.

\---

At nineteen, Ellior finally felt like the Circle might be a home. He’d undertaken his Harrowing two years earlier, chosen to study under an Enchanter named Wynne, who was an expert in spirit healing. He’d made friends, discovered his love of books, done important research, and had even managed to see Yveriel fairly regularly.

He still shrunk in the presence of Templars. He still waited for them to deem him unsafe and strike him down with their swords. Or worse.

But generally, the Circle was a place of learning. And Ellior discovered he actually rather liked it there most days.

Until disaster struck.

The Fifth Blight ravaged Fereldan, and the Circle at Kinloch Hold crumbled.

\---

At twenty, Dorian was frustrated with his homeland. He’d seen the excesses, the injustices, the inequities, and he couldn’t look away anymore.

Alexius agreed with him, and they drafted a plan to reform the Imperium. Slowly. Far too slowly for Dorian’s taste, but at the same time, he knew rushing headlong would only lead to an untimely death.

So they worked. They researched, gathered allies. An underground movement of young Enchanters emerged, gathered from every corner of the Imperium.

Dorian felt a flash of hope in his gut. He might actually make a difference in this world.

\---

At twenty, Ellior found another family. Yveriel dragged him out of the ruined Circle Tower, and the two of them ran for the Dalish Clan who had set up camp nearby. The Lavellans.

The Keeper had heard much of Ellior from his sister, who had been staying with them off and on for the last six years. She invited him to stay on as her Second, to continue his magical studies, but now in the way of the elves rather than the shemlen in the Circle.

Ellior didn’t realize there was more than one way to learn how to use his magic.

But he reveled in the chance to learn, to make a difference in this world.

\---

At twenty-four, Dorian’s dreams finally fell around him. Alexius’ wife had been killed, Felix had been stricken with the Blight. Gereon was inconsolable.

He stayed on anyway. Tried to help Alexius realize his new obsession with time magic was only going to end in more tragedy. Felix added his voice, as well. It was to no avail.

He poured his energies into politics, but he felt stuck, mired. He owed Alexius everything, how could he abandon the man now? Felix offered to stay active in the Lucerni - the name of their fledgling political group - but Dorian didn’t allow it. Politicking was dangerous in the Imperium, and he wouldn’t be the reason Alexius lost Felix for good.

He spent less and less time at the Alexius Estate in Asariel.

\---

At twenty-four, Ellior again thought he found a place he might call home. Well, it still wasn’t really a place, he supposed. The Lavellan Clan moved almost constantly from the edges of Fereldan through the Free Marches.

Yveriel thrived with them. Their Huntress taught her how to blend into her environment, sneak up on her foes (or prey, depending on the session) and catch them by surprise. She came back to Ellior with blood across her cheeks and a smile wide on her face as she regaled him with her tales.

Clan Lavellan was home. But he still felt like an outsider. Most of his skills had been learned from humans at the Circle. The Keeper and the First didn’t know what to do with that. They were kind to him, taught him all they knew, but he knew they didn’t see him as an equal.

But it was safe, at least.

\---

At twenty-six, Dorian had finally had enough. He’d argued with Alexius for an hour about his insane quest to prevent the attack on his family. He’d screamed and swore and shook in frustration.

And Gereon was unmoved. Completely, totally, wholly unmoved.

“Go then, if you must,” he’d said, voice even.

So he did. He left the Alexius Estate, the only home that had accepted him for who he was. The only home that had given him warmth and love and encouragement.

He thought briefly about returning to the Lucerni in Minrathous, or his mother and father in Qarinus.

Instead he found himself in the slums of Asariel, listless and lost.

\---

At twenty-six, tragedy struck again for Ellior. Within days, not only had a small elven boy of the clan shown signs of magic, but also word of the Kirkwall Mage Rebellion had reached Clan Lavellan. All of the clan was reasonably spooked by the news. Whenever humans had conflicts with each other, inevitably the elves were caught in the middle.

Before anyone asked, he volunteered to leave.

Everyone knew elven clans never kept more than three mages in their ranks. Better for the young boy to stay and train under the Keeper and the First. He had skills enough to forge his own path.

Yveriel decided with tears in her eyes to stay with the clan.

So Ellior was on his own. He wandered the countryside with enough supplies to get him to Ostwick before he’d travel across the Waking Sea to Fereldan. He wasn’t sure what he’d do once he got there, but it was a direction at least.

\---

At twenty-eight, Dorian found himself a prisoner in his own house. He’d been picked up by some lackeys of his father at the home of Lord Ulio Abrexis, after a long night of debauchery and sex. They’d kept him on a ship for a month as they brought him to his parents’ home in Qarinus.

It was a horrible journey from start to finish. He was hardly allowed on the top deck, for fear that he’d jump overboard and swim to land or drown. Apparently his parents wanted him alive, for some unknown reason. It’s not like he had ever been a model scion of his father’s house.

He thought he was going to be sick.

Landing in Qarinus had been no better than being trapped on a rocking ship, though. He was confined to the lowest level of the estate, and forbidden from leaving. Forbidden even from opening the windows, or seeing any company.

It was a lonely existence. But not much lonelier than he had been in Asariel at the end.

\---

At twenty-eight, Ellior joined a mercenary band. He joined as their healer, as he wasn’t much of a fighter. But the coin was enough to keep his head above water, and the company was actually much better than he thought it would be.

Joey Cadash was their leader, a dwarf who took no shit from anyone, but the scars that littered her skin told a story full of love for the ones around her.

Nihkaani Adaar was their frontline warrior, a Vashoth who stood taller than anyone Ellior had met before. She was almost as reckless as Joey, but had skin thick enough to repel most of the worst attacks. She was the one who told stories at the fire at night, keeping the others in good spirits even after a tough battle. She was stoic and tough on the battlefield, but kind and gentle off it.

There were others, as well. An elven archer, a human rogue, a dwarven sapper. There were ten of them total, and another handful who would join them when their missions took them nearby.

For the most part, Ellior could get away with not using magic at all. He read enough medical texts, and learned enough in his travels to pass for a healer who used herbs and wraps and splints and poultices. Every once in a while, someone on the team would get hurt badly enough that he would revert to his elven or Circle training.

The only one who knew his secret was Nihkaani.

\---

At thirty, Dorian had been wandering Tevinter listlessly for nearly two years. He’d escaped the prison of his parents’ home, had managed to flee before his father’s plans came to fruition. But he still had nowhere to go, and no money to his name.

So he was surprised when Alexius approached him again, this time with a proposal. Join him again, work with him on his time magic (which he still hadn’t gotten to work in the last four years). He’d gotten the assistance of a Tevinter supremacist group called the Venatori. They’d given him supplies, money, a laboratory, and subjects for his experiments. He asked Dorian to join him, as part of the Venatori.

He’d never felt so betrayed and heartbroken in his life.

All they had worked for in his youth, all the research they’d done, all the politicking, was it all for nothing? Was Alexius throwing it all away for a magic that wouldn’t ever work the way he wanted?

He refused the offer.

But he followed Alexius to Redcliffe. He wouldn’t join him, though. He needed to find a way to stop him. To save Alexius from himself.

\---

At thirty, Ellior traveled with the mercenary band to the Temple of Sacred Ashes. They’d been hired on as guards as Mages, Templars, and Chantry all sat together to come to some sort of agreement and end the war between them.

Yveriel was there, as second to Leliana, the Left Hand of the Divine. She looked happy there, and even happier when Ellior entered Haven. Their reunion was filled with joy and tears and the longest hug either of them had had in half a decade. He introduced her to Nihkaani, and the two of them became fast friends, all three frequently seen together throughout the village and Temple.

Then they heard the cries of the Divine from the lower levels.

And the Rift was unleashed upon the world.


End file.
